Tag: Grainpro

I mentioned in the last post about green coffee, that our coffee gets transported to us in Jute bags with a Grainpro liner. So what is a Grainpro liner and why is most speciality coffee transported in it?

A Grainpro liner is a bag that acts as a gas and moisture-proof barrier which guards against the ingress of water vapour, while retaining low Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide levels created by the respiration of the commodity. They are made of tough, multi-layer plastic with gas barrier between layers of PE 0.078mm thick material. They are sealed using tie-wraps and placed inside an outer jute bag. The bags can be used with any kind of commodity, and in tests using coffee, the bags have been shown to extend the colour, flavour and aroma life of the coffee.

When I first started roasting commodity style coffee six or so years ago, all of the coffee I bought came in a jute bag with no Grainpro liner. I noticed that the coffee seemed to ‘fade’ within the periods of time they were in storage at the roastery. Admittedly, I didn’t roast as much coffee as I do now, so a bag would sit around for longer. However, since moving into roasting speciality coffee and the use of Grainpro for all the coffee, I’ve noticed that the coffee doesn’t fade. Now, I can’t say that the initial take up of Grainpro liners wasn’t instigated by me, but the work of our importers. However, Grainpro bag liners have become a prerequisite to my purchasing criteria of green coffee.

Every coffee that is listed on our site has been shipped from origin in Grainpro. This indicates that we are making every attempt to optimise the flavour profile of our coffee throughout it’s route to the roastery and whilst it’s warehoused with us.

Although we operate a ‘by appointment only’ approach at the roastery, we often get people dropping in. This usually (if we’re not roasting) ends in a small tour of the facility and description of the processes involved in order to produce roasted coffee. Often people are keen to see (and handle) coffee in its raw state – green coffee. Most are genuinely surprised at the colour, and the fact that they don’t smell like coffee (think fresh cut hay or possibly peas). If we ever have a bag of naturally processed Ehtiopian coffee in store, it’s this bag and it’s boozy aromatics, that startles most.

With the above in mind, I thought it would be useful to post a photo of raw green coffee, or green beans as us roasters call it. The beans in the photo are from a washed Central American farm, Muxbal. You’ll notice that the beans are a green/yellow colour and look vastly different from the brown, roasted product that you may be used to. You might also notice that the beans are stored in what looks like a plastic bag, which itself is inside the traditional jute sack. This is a Grainpro bag, which is now commonplace as a storage method for the speciality green coffee we purchase. These bags form a moisture and gas barrier which protects the coffee during transportation and storage. I will post an article on the benefits of different materials for transportation and storage at a later date.

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